If you take the market view (value being what people are willing to pay for), then the market clearly tells you that people value digitally delivered experiences at $not-much, rapidly falling to NIL. After all, bits are near-free to copy from the market's POV too - for everyone, it's trivial to either copy a piece of digital content themselves, or ask someone who'll copy it for them for free.
Copyrights and branding piracy as theft are ways of trying to artificially control the free market here. But they're so obviously "unnatural" in the digital space, that it makes sense to think about ways of making it so that the original creator gets paid, while copying remains free.
Reading this comment and your other one above, I think we are in general agreement. I think there are two pieces here: one is a change in perception to some extent: you're right that many people value digital delivery differently and lower. To some extent I think that can change. I know it's changed for myself personally over the years.
The other is along the lines of what you wrote here, which I think sums it nicely:
we need to rethink the path that currently leads from "X created it, and deserves compensation" to "Y receives a copy and should pay for it".
What I'd like to hear is more about potential solutions as opposed to descriptions.
> (...) many people value digital delivery differently and lower. To some extent I think that can change. I know it's changed for myself personally over the years.
I know it changed for me too, and I think it's mostly because of having more disposable income nowadays than in the past. As a teenager, there was no way I could afford movies or video games. Now, my natural first instinct for media is buying / subscribing on Amazon, Netflix and Steam.
> What I'd like to hear is more about potential solutions as opposed to descriptions.
I've been thinking about one, and it turns out to be exactly what 'endominus described here:
Copyrights and branding piracy as theft are ways of trying to artificially control the free market here. But they're so obviously "unnatural" in the digital space, that it makes sense to think about ways of making it so that the original creator gets paid, while copying remains free.